Just a Child
by AngelOfContemplation
Summary: Dumbledore makes a mistake in choosing to have students write a poem about themselves... Harry takes advantage of that mistake...


**A/N:** Uhhh... this is... some random thing that started out as a random poem that I almost don't even like. So... hopefully you guys enjoy it anyway, but I won't be surprised if there are those who don't.

**Warnings:** Apparently my muses wish to bash Dumbledore, so Dumbledore-bashing. A few cuss words. Mentions of abuse, so a bit mature in theme as according to that aspect of the story. Oh, and, basically Harry-centric as I kind of don't touch on what anyone else is thinking about what happens, nor do I detail what happens in anyone else's point of view.

**Disclaimer:** Anything owned by others is obviously not my own. I own the poem as I did write it from what my muses thought of as Harry's point of view. I own my ideas that went into making this really random piece of fiction, but not known characters or places or themes.

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Harry James Potter knew one solitary, simple thing; the Headmaster of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was completely and totally insane. Apparently, the senile old man thought it would be a grand and glorious idea for the students to be randomly called out during mealtimes to recite a poem about themselves that would tell their classmates something that they did not know about one another. Although they had more than enough time to compose these autobiographical poems, he was sure that the subject matter that existed in his own would cause him to be called a liar, once more, by his classmates who grew up on the stories of the Boy-Who-Lived growing up in wealth and all that rubbish.

One thing was certain and more than clear in his mind, Albus Dumbledore would live to regret this little genius idea of his. Harry would, for once, refuse to hide what he lived with for his entire life with his relatives. They were far from being fit to call family with everything they' dished out to him. They were unscrupulous people who lived off of a stipend meant to aide them in his care while he was forced to work himself to the bone in their home to 'earn his keep'. He was nothing to them and he often heard of his uncle promising that one day, they would poison the scraps of food they allowed him. Needless to say, he never ate anymore while within that much loathed household.

Dumbledore was predictable though, and that would be where it cost him the most... And, as Harry stepped up at the top of the raised dais the staff table sat upon and turned to his fellow students to read his poem as the first chosen to do so, Harry hoped that it would do the old man irreparable damage. Taking a deep breath, he begins, "My poem is titled: _'Just a Child'_" Another breath is taken, then,

"Once upon a troubled time

I had a life golden and sublime

It ended when I had aged one year, no younger,

Then I was a babe no longer

Both parents gone

I was alone

To my own blood kin

My every breath is a sin

I am a blight on their normalcy,

In the small minds of my muggle family

Although my inheritance pays them well

They make sure that my life is a living hell

Though silently in my cupboard I lay

they wish I was in a grave and just may

Be the ones who put me there

And who would pretend to care?

Nobody checks up on an orphan boy

Who is nothing but a used war toy

Because of an old man who sales

My life as gloriously fabricated tall tales

Of riches that spoil me like royalty

And earns me friends with questionable loyalty

For them, fame is a wonderful gift they'd love to accept,

Though it's but a hangman's noose around my neck

I struggle and am bogged down

by a wholly unwanted and tarnished crown

That has been placed upon my head

But makes me think it'd be best had I been dead

All I want is somebody who would care

For the young man beneath the surface seen by the public's stare

The only riches that mean anything to me

Is nothing more than the love of a family

Still it seems I will be denied

And forever forced to hide

With those who wish me dead and gone

What have I done to deserve being treated so wrong?

It's just too damned bad for me

That Death can't take me easily

So I suffer like a savior of lazy fools should

Because being saved from my personal hell just wouldn't be good..

And when my thoughts turn inward and run wild

I wonder, to anyone, was I ever just a child?"

Gazing at the students, mostly staring at him in shock, Harry offers them a small smile. "Well, that's the end of it. All true, as required and... honestly, if some moron is going to write stories about my oh so wonderful life, it would help if someone got off their arse and gave a damn enough to actually check on me instead of relying on their faith in love." It was a stab at Dumbledore and he knew that the old man knew it, as did all of the staff who knew the old man.

Harry continues oh so very calmly, "Sometimes it's the people who share your blood who can be the most cruel to you. Why else would Voldemort not scare me as much as he should, and why else would I go running off without trusting an adult when every adult in this room other than Professor Snape has failed to protect me. In fact, the Headmaster that everyone seems to think is a good man is the one who played God with my life and chose to not only have my parents' will sealed and ignored, but placed me with the one family they expressly forbade anyone to place me within seeing distance of. You want the bloody truth about the Boy-Who-Lived and my so-called pampered lifestyle, you'd best consult the most badly abused house elf you know, ask them how they are treated, and you will be a fraction closer to seeing and knowing what my life has been like. I am nothing more than a pawn in the game of war to be used and discarded at the will of just one of the players currently moving pieces across the board. Brought out when needed, and easily tossed away until next time."

Emerald eyes look upon the students and gauge their continued attentions before Harry speaks again. "So if any of you want my fame, you can have it. Anybody want my status? Take it, I will gladly hand it over to you. You want me dead? Well, get in line behind myself a a few dozen other people. I'm not insane, nor am I suicidal. I am simply tired of being beaten into the ground by my blood kin, only to think that I have finally escaped them and their cruelty here, in the world I was born in. I set myself up, though, for disappointment beyond measure because what I get here, is more of the same of the abuse that I have always been handed, only different in the way it's dished up. If the Headmaster wanted me to see him as the one who's saved me from my relatives, he's failed. All I see him as is a selfish old man who manipulates people because he sees it as his right for being who he is. He is nothing to me but my jailer. Look up to him if you so choose, as for me... I refuse to be anyone's pawn any longer. You want Voldemort dead, get off your lazy arses and kill him yourself."

His piece of mind given, Harry walks calmly down the steps and sweeps out of the Great Hall and through the doors of the castle. Once outside the wards of the school, he disapparates without a care as to the chaos his leaving is going to cause. He was done with it all, and would only come back when he had news of something being done by the adults on the good side of the war. Until then, he would train his way and only come back when he was ready and fully prepared to be the hero they thought of him as. Hedwig knew that he was leaving this place and would follow him as soon as she was done with her hunting. Thanks to Sirius, Harry had all the money he needed to get by on and multiple properties that were unplottable. Also thanks to his dear godfather, he was emancipated and could leave the school to gain an education elsewhere should he find the school unfit for his needs as a student.

As Harry made his way inside of the Black home in the USA, he smiles and could honestly care less about the school he just left. The one where the cacophony of voices raised in alarm and anger exploded in the Great Hall and the staff did not care to step in and silence as their voices were added to those of their students, attacking Dumbledore with their sharp tongues and a fierce distaste for the wrongs he committed along with accusations that it might even be his fault that there was a Dark Lord to contend with as he could have stopped the man a long time ago, before he even began his first reign of terror.

It was the type of chaos that Harry'd wanted to cause... chaos that snapped people out of putting an old man with too much power on a pedestal he did not deserve or live up to. If they learned to think for themselves instead of following a master manipulator, then the war would soon be won instead of staged like a glorious showdown that caused a higher death toll than was needed.

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**A/N:** I honestly don't know where this came from... so if it sucks... eh... I didn't really expect it to make sense or come out well anyways. Guess my plot bunnies had the random urge to hate on Dumbledore. Anyways, lemme know what you think if you wish.


End file.
